Wiretap Case Against Tripp Officially Ends
The formal end to State of Maryland vs. Linda Tripp came in a two-minute hearing Wednesday in Howard County Circuit Court.
“The state no longer has sufficient independent evidence to proceed,” Assistant State Prosecutor Thomas M. McDonough told Judge Diane O. Leasure. Prosecutors had announced last week that they would ask the court to dismiss the indictment against Tripp. Leasure did just that.
Tripp attorney Joseph Murtha said his client was “very grateful.”
Tripp was indicted in July on two state charges stemming from the secret recording of her telephone conversations with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky--the tapes that led to President Clinton’s impeachment.
Last week, Leasure suppressed crucial testimony by Lewinsky because it was “tainted” by information that Tripp had provided under a federal grant of immunity, crippling the state’s case.
The immunity grant from independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr protected Tripp from federal prosecution and from the state’s use of immunized testimony. The case hinged on the ability of Lewinsky to testify that it was her voice on the tape and that the recording was of a Dec. 22, 1997, call to Tripp’s Howard County home.
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